1st Desk

When my sister moved into her apartment in her junior year of college, the first thing she asked me for was a custom desk. I hadn't yet taken on the challenge of making a large piece of real furniture that would get real use, but I accepted the challenge and put my skills to the test, and the three months of work certainly paid off.

The build began with the slow collections and breaking down of used pallets I attained from my job. These were gritty, nail-ridden pallets with a mix of soft and hardwoods. (swipe between pictures)

Next, I spent a few minutes drawing up a few designs for my sister to choose from, the ideas inspired from both her input and examples I found online. Once settled on a design, I spent many hours planning and experimenting with seat heights and various measurements, accounting for factors that couldn't be changed and working around them. (see original plans to the right)

Construction began with the drawer box, a housing for the drawers to glide in and out of, the drawers themselves and finishing with edge banding (swipe between pictures)

Another trip to Home Depot, this time spending about 45 minutes test fitting different pipes together to create the legs (swipe between pictures)

I began processing the pallet wood to a consistent thickness to inlay in the drawer fronts, creating a single board that was then cut down the middle to create two matching fronts (swipe between pictures)

The tabletop was assembled by laminating the pallet wood to plywood, trimming the edges, sanding for several hours and creating a border to give it a finished look (swipe between pictures)

Finishing touches to the main components include adding drawer pull handles, painting and finishing the drawers, painting the bottom of the desktop and creating a keyboard tray (swipe between pictures)

The legs could now be attached, as well as the keyboard tray (swipe between pictures)

The desk was complete. Above are the final pictures after being placed in my sister apartment, organized to her liking.

Several months after the completion of the desk, I decided to make a matching shelf to go along with the desk. (swipe between pictures)

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